In a blow to medical liability reform, the Georgia Supreme Court last week struck down a 2005 cap on medical malpractice awards. The court said the law violates the constitutional right to trial by jury. The Illinois Supreme Court struck down that states medical malpractice caps in February.

Unfortunately the only way to overturn Georgia and Illinois court rulings is via state constitutional amendments. The ACC will work closely with state medical societies, our chapters, the American Medical Association state teams and the Board of Governors to address the situation in Illinois and Georgia.

This decision brings up a larger issue nationwide: The trial bar is on the move in the state legislatures and the courts. As such, we need to do all we can to protect existing state cap laws and pass or protect pro-physician laws for early offer, expert witness, choice of venue and more. 

There is an information vacuum with regard to pilots available to the states in the med mal provisions of the federal reform bill. We need to help get that valuable information out there — and we will.

Meanwhile, nobody’s paying attention to the amazingly positive effect of real tort reform in Texas three years back in lowering premiums, reducing legal costs, and attracting more doctors into the state! Texas’ law, like California’s 27 year old MICRA law, reduces pain and suffering (non-economic damages) caps for docs to a max of $250,000, which is fair to patients (because there are no caps on medical, job or income loss, or other damages). But, it reduces the number of frivolous lawsuits. It works. 

*** Image from Flickr (walknboston). ***